The Washington County Enterprise-Leader won 21 awards in the 2021 Arkansas Press Association Better Newspaper Editorial Contest, including second place in General Excellence among the state's small weekly newspapers.
Mark Humphrey, sports editor, won first-place awards for Best Series reporting, sports column and photo page. Humphrey and Lynn Kutter, news editor, also won first-place awards for coverage of agriculture and business and second place for coverage of education.
Page designer Monica Hooper received the first-place award for best front page among smaller weeklies.
Other awards for the Enterprise-Leader included first and second place to Maylon Rice for news or political columns and third place to Rice for freelance writing.
Humphrey also received second-place honors for sports new story, sports feature photograph, humorous column and photo page. He received third place in covid-beat reporting, sports news story and sports feature story.
Kutter received second-place awards for beat reporting, covid-beat reporting and single news photo. She received third place in the news story category, beat reporting and coverage of health and medical.
The Spring River Chronicle in Hardy received the first-place award for General Excellence among small weeklies. The Helena World received third place in General Excellence for the small weeklies category.
The 2021 awards were presented July 23 at the annual convention of the Arkansas Press Association. The convention was held virtually because of covid-19 concerns.
The contest covered news and editorial content published in the calendar year 2020. The small weekly division included entries from about 11 different newspapers around the state.